The Flavorful Addition That Takes Your Tuna Salad To The Next Level

Tuna fish — fresh, canned, or soft-packed — is such a versatile protein, and converting it to tuna salad is a quick way to make a flavorful meal or sandwich filling. In addition to standard fillings, like chopped pickles, onions, and celery, there are lots of hacks for elevating everyday tuna salad. You can change up the character and add everything bagel seasoning to your tuna, or go for a Spanish-style tuna salad with green olives and red peppers, among other ingredients. Recipe upgrades can sometimes get complex. But there's one ingredient, probably sitting in your fridge right now, that instantly transforms tuna salad: Chop up some bacon and add it to the mix for salty, crunchy contrast.

It may feel odd, adding another protein, but it's not without precedent. Many people chop eggs into their tuna, not unlike a niçoise salad. But bacon in tuna salad works more like potato chips — another popular addition — bringing salt, crunch, and umami flavors to enhance the creamy fat from mayonnaise or avocado, and the sour, bitter flavors from pickles and celery. If you're not expecting it, the contrast in textures might be a bit disorienting. But the crunch makes it particularly effective in sandwiches where bacon complements toasted bread.

There are sound, scientific reasons why bacon tastes good with everything. Where some ingredients, like bananas or almonds, are marked by a single flavor molecule, bacon in all its meaty, smoky, sweet, and savory goodness, is pleasingly rich and complex. Interestingly, bits of bacon mixed into a basic tuna salad can become overwhelmed and lost, such that all you really experience is the crunch. Instead, it helps to experiment with ingredient combinations that extract and highlight bacon's flavors.

There are a number of ways to get your bacon fix. You can use leftover bacon, if such a thing exists. But day-old bacon can sometimes develop a bitter note that stands out in tuna salad. If the bacon is extra-crispy, it's especially noticeable. The most convenient bacon for salads may be bacon bits, or fully-cooked, shelf-stable bacon like Hormel Black Label. The challenge is, both options have mild flavors that can disappear in creamy, deli-style tuna salads.

So fresh-made bacon works especially well here. You'll want to fry or bake it until it's approaching crispy, but not extra crispy (where that bitter flavor note starts dominating). Pat it dry and allow it to cool to room temperature before chopping it up and mixing it into the salad. Thick-cut, hickory smoked bacon is an especially flavorful option, but definitely cook it to near crispy, or you'll miss out on the contrast.

As with other ingredients in tuna salad, chop or tear cooked bacon into small pieces. Too large and they'll disrupt the overall balance and flavor experience. Whether you've reheated pre-cooked bacon or made a new batch, remove extra grease by patting it dry between paper towels, and allow it to cool for a few minutes.

Bacon serves as an excellent flavor binder when added to other standard tuna salad ingredients that emphasize sour and umami flavors. Julia Child elevated tuna salad sandwiches with sharp flavors including capers, onions, and cornichons — and bacon works wonderfully in this context. If you add a little lemon juice to your salad, it will cut and complement the fat in bacon. You can enhance the bacon-ness by adding a couple dashes of Boss Hog bacon flavored seasoning. Or, pan-toast bread in a bit of bacon grease (Throwing out bacon grease is a huge mistake). Either method, in moderation, will upgrade a basic tuna salad sandwich with loads of bacony flavor.

Another option that works marvelously is to top a classic tuna melt with bacon. Cook it separately and pat dry, then build your tuna melt. Add tomato slices, jalapeños, or sliced dill pickles for a particularly indulgent, deli-style, loaded sandwich.